


Failure

by conceptstage



Series: Single Chapter Critical Role [91]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 17:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20911568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Success and failure are both part of life. Both are not permanent.





	Failure

Strangely, it’s Caleb who notices that she’s missing first.

After some thought, he supposes it makes sense. Jester can barely see her own footsteps through the tears in her eyes and Caduceus has been gently holding her to keep her on her feet and keep her from wandering into any passers by on their way back to the house from the palace. Fjord landed on his leg weird thanks to Nott’s last minute Feather Fall that barely caught him in time. He hadn’t noticed it until all the adrenaline wore off and he realized that it hurt to put weight on his ankle. Nott was staring at her feet and he could see the shroud of disappointment and failure draped over her sagging shoulders.

Caleb cleared his throat and put a hand on Caducues’s arm as the others all filed into the house to hopefully find some rest from the painful and disappointing night they’d had. “Beau is missing,” he said. “I think she wandered off in the palace district, I am going to find her.” He used his stone to give himself darkvision and the world around him lit up gray. “Can you look after the others until we get back?”

“Of course,” Caduceus said. “I’ll make some tea. That’ll cheer everyone up.”

Caleb nodded and cleared his throat. “Thank you.” Then he turned and started to retrace their steps back through town. Most of the people in the street avoided him. He was walking for maybe ten minutes, the palace standing tall and resolute in the distance, when he heard a voice that he recognized anywhere.

“Hey!” Beau yelled from somewhere around the next corner. “This is discrimination! Let me in you bastards!” He turned the corner and found her standing outside a building and banging on the door. He could see flickering torchlight coming through the windows. “Hey!” She kicked the door and huffed but turned away from it just as he started to get near. She met his eyes and sighed. “Great, Caleb’s here. Hope you weren’t hoping for a drink or anything because this fucking place doesn’t serve humans!”

Beau started marching down the street where he’d come from and he scrambled to follow her. “Ah, wait. Why did you disappear, we were worried.”

“Well, I’m obviously fine even though I can’t find a motherfucking drink in this motherfucking place. You can go home, tell the others I’ll be back by morning. If I’m not back by morning, maybe just forget about me, cut your losses, get rid of the dead weight.”

He couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “Beau, you are not a dead weight, what are you talking about?”

She sighed and started scrubbing her hands against her face like she was trying to wipe away the emotions. “I’m just… I’m so fucking tired.” She rested her palms against her eyes and leaned back against the brick side of a nearby building. “I’m so goddamn sick of failing, I’m sick of just… I don’t want to be a failure anymore, I thought I was passed that.” She pushed herself off the wall and stuffed her hands in her pockets and continued marching forward, making Caleb jog to keep up with her long strides. “And now I can’t even get drunk about it. A disappointing end to the disappointing day of a disappointment, what else is fucking new?”

Caleb cleared his throat when she didn’t speak for a few seconds but neither of them slowed their pace. “Are you finished?”

“What, finished complaining? Hell no, I’m just getting started.”

“No, I meant with the self-flagellation.”

“Oh, that,” she said, a sarcastic edge in her voice as she rolled her eyes. “No. Probably not. Why, you want a turn?”

“I understand that you are upset-”

“Oh, do you? Do you understand what I’m feeling right now, really? What it feels like to look your friend in the eye and see… nothing. And then,” she paused to laugh mirthlessly. “And then I just stood there and watched her disappear all over again. Just another person I let down, I’ll add that to the fucking list.”

“You have a list?” It wasn’t the most pressing question right now, for sure, but it was the one he wanted answered.

“Sure, why not, let’s list them out. I let down my parents the day I was born, so that’s pretty close to the top. I let down Tori, my brother, Dairon, the entirety of the Cobalt Soul, Essik, Yasha, you, any fucking horse I’ve ever owned-”

“You,” he interrupted her and then frowned. “You have never let me down.”

Beau sighed and gave him a disbelieving frown. “Come on, Caleb. Don’t lie just to make me feel better, that’s not like you.”

“I’m not lying. You… I know that you and I have had our... disagreements.” She snorted but didn’t comment. Calling them disagreements was putting it lightly. “But I have never felt let down by you.” She looked away from his eyes but didn’t say anything in response. “To be fair, that is partly because at the beginning I had no assumptions about you and refused to rely on you. But that changed very quickly, the night I told you about my parents, that was the first time I needed you and you did not let me down. And you have not let me down since. I cannot speak for the others you mentioned but… at the very least you may remove me from that list.”

Beau still didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s still pretty long. I wasn’t even finished yet.”

“I guarantee you that any such list that I made would be much, much longer.”

“Okay, stop bragging,” but she was smiling so he was pretty sure she was just teasing. “Do we have booze at the house?”

“I know a place that will sell us whiskey, it’s not far out of our way.”

Beau grinned. “Even better.” 


End file.
